I'm having a hard time coming up with an excuse to help established companies and individuals who don't believe in their own product enough to put their own assets at risk.

The staff of Camouflaj have put their own assets into developing what they already have. They hired a mo-cap studio, a voice actress, built the skeleton of a game, and assembled a promotional video out of the results.

So if a lack of developer risk is really the only thing stopping you from supporting this, go ahead and make your pledge now.

The staff of Camouflaj have put their own assets into developing what they already have. They hired a mo-cap studio, a voice actress, built the skeleton of a game, and assembled a promotional video out of the results.

So if a lack of developer risk is really the only thing stopping you from supporting this, go ahead and make your pledge now.

Wow, they paid for a small bit of the costs from their own money. That means I should rush into giving them money with no obligationon their part? The real attraction for many on Kickstarter is absolutely no accountability and no obligation to share the profits as they would with actual investors. It's a win-win, people give money and you get all the profit.

I liked Kickstarter when it was little guys looking for a hand up instead of established teams and people looking for others to take on the bulk of funding. I can't wait to see a Call of Duty game that won't be made unless people give Activision $30m first. Don't worry, it'll still have buyable DLC within a couple of months of release.

Wow, they paid for a small bit of the costs from their own money. That means I should rush into giving them money with no obligationon their part? The real attraction for many on Kickstarter is absolutely no accountability and no obligation to share the profits as they would with actual investors. It's a win-win, people give money and you get all the profit.

I liked Kickstarter when it was little guys looking for a hand up instead of established teams and people looking for others to take on the bulk of funding. I can't wait to see a Call of Duty game that won't be made unless people give Activision $30m first. Don't worry, it'll still have buyable DLC within a couple of months of release.

do you not understand how funding normally works in the real world?

developers need money to make a game. developers don't really have money to make games.

publishers, i.e. activision, are the ones who normally give up the money. they are the ones who already have the millions of dollars. hence, they will never do a kickstarter as their business model works perfectly fine. they have no reason or logic to. developers on the other hand do NOT have millions of dollars. they are typically your every-day worker, not big wigs swimming in money. i think you are having trouble understanding this basic concept here...

these developers are trying to make a game without a publisher.

they have no publisher, so they have no source of income, hence the kickstarter.

nobody ever said kickstarter was INVESTING in a project. nowhere does it say that profits will ever be shared. it's glorified pre-ordering. but certain projects would never work out if enough people don't pre-order, so the kickstater system came to be to assist with this. process - to get the customers to the producers. emphasis on the word customer. not investors. there are other websites for that. http://www.crowdfunder.com/.

Obviously I understand how funding works. Ad hominem all you want. These guys are trying to self-publish for no reason beyond a larger share of the profits. That's it. They have sufficient credentials to talk to publishers and investors, but they aren't doing that.

Normally, investors take on the risk in exchange for a share of the profits. Kickstarter is just becoming a way for people to take on as little risk as possible while sharing as little of the profits as possible.

Obviously I understand how funding works. Ad hominem all you want. These guys are trying to self-publish for no reason beyond a larger share of the profits. That's it. They have sufficient credentials to talk to publishers and investors, but they aren't doing that.

Normally, investors take on the risk in exchange for a share of the profits. Kickstarter is just becoming a way for people to take on as little risk as possible while sharing as little of the profits as possible.

Well, they claimed the publishers all considered it too risky. They don't think it is too risky but other than steal the money Kickstarter is pretty much it for trying to make it happen. I don't even think a bank will loan out that kind of money without a significant co-signer or backing which essentially is co-publishing at that point.

You're both right, though. Kickstarter is both the only way for large and "risky" projects to have a chance but also puts more risk on the investor than usual without an equal reward. There is no legal obligation for the company to either return money that's met or even deliver the same product that was promised.

I haven't reasearched it much because Kickstarter isn't my thing but I'd like to know if anyone has been burned by either stolen money or a substantially different end product. To it's credit, it seems like very little of that is happening now which speaks to the quality of people using it.

I haven't reasearched it much because Kickstarter isn't my thing but I'd like to know if anyone has been burned by either stolen money or a substantially different end product. To it's credit, it seems like very little of that is happening now which speaks to the quality of people using it.

There's some other completely funded video game related projects that are on the verge of flaking that I've been told about on an off the record basis. Most of the projects that hopped on board Kickstarter in a "me too" sense following Doublefine Adventure have had their 30 days on Kickstarter, of the ones that got funded, there's going to be some high profile flakes. It's inevitable.

Building a game is hard, especially if it's the first time you do it. Starting a business is hard, especially the first time you do it. In both instances, you're likely going to totally fail via mismanagement and all the other things that occur due to lack of experience. There's more than a few Kickstarters brewing now with funded teams who have never made a game before that now need to figure out how to turn those dollars into a product that vaguely resembles what they promised and build a successful game development business out of the blue.

Unfortunately, it seems, way too many of the folks behind these projects thought that the best way to do that was by spending lots of money at PAX East... But, hey, zero obligation money, why not?

Quote:

Originally Posted by JRavey

I'm old school, if you won't put your house up as collateral you shouldn't ask others to pay for your dreams.

We made our game for essentially nothing but software costs and it's never been done before. I know firsthand the difficulty and honestly I just wasn't willing to risk my kids' financial security so I just set it up so that everyone got a decent cut of the profits.

I can't say I judge others who see the viablity of Kickstarter and I honestly believe Camoflaj to be managing their budget responsibly for what seems to be an unpredecented production quality in iOS.

I just hope it comes out because it will be the ultimate litmus test on how well the hardcore can support the iPad and/or if the "blue ocean" of casual gamers are interested enough in the mature high concept of the game as opposed to another endless runner or tower defense game.

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